WTA Watercooler

[[Mornin'. Tribe. Here's  your Watercooler post for today, courtesy of a young man who's relatively new to TennisWorld. Chatting with Richard a few weeks ago, I told him that I felt as if I often shorted-changed the WTA in my coverage, and invited him to write a post on the heels of the Australian Open. Enjoy. This will be a good place to discuss the state of the women's game. I'll be posting later - Pete]]

By TW Guest Contributor Richard Solash

The tennis season is one of the longest in professional sports. With just a handful of tournament-free weeks on the calendar, there is no logical reason why the year’s big stories shouldn’t be spread out over months.

To some extent, this is the case – a major upset in February, a rankings shake-up in November – and that’s why so many of us tune in whenever tennis happens to be on TV. But then, there are the Slams. Then, we really tune in, and then, things really happen. They are the four punctuation marks – exclamation points, actually – in the tennis season.

The 2008 Australian Open has just been exclaimed. While the ears of tennis enthusiasts are still ringing, let’s recap what some of the noise was about on the ladies’ side:

OWWW!

If you asked Jelena Jankovic’s body how it was feeling, that's what it would say. The third-seeded Serb, Gumby-like in her flexibility, proved during this year’s Open that human muscles can only stretch so far. After playing through a thigh strain at the Hopman Cup, Jankovic should have made the decision that so many of her peers would have – take next  week off.

Not Jelena. She pushed herself through two tough three-setters at Sydney, and the resulting fatigue (along with up-and-coming Tamira Paszek) almost sent her packing in the Open’s first round. By the time Jankovic got to the semis, she was spent both emotionally and physically. She offered little resistance to the much-fresher Sharapova, and with a trainer-treated back injury, left the court in tears.

The WTA gets a lot of flack for player absenteeism, but an injury is an injury. Jelena should have listened to her body, and those around her should have made sure that she did. Granted, she is the type of player who needs a lot of matches to feel prepared, but work too hard and you’re working against yourself. Did I mention that Jelena played three rounds of doubles in Melbourne too?

SQUEAK!

At this year’s event, Ana Ivanovic’s level of play was making quite a racket (pardon the homophone). However, her shoes were nearly as loud. As the newly-minted world number 2 prepared to return serve, her stutter-stepping soles produced squeaking sounds that were not only annoying, but downright distracting.

In a tension-filled semifinal, Ianovic's opponent, Daniela Hantuchova, actually complained about the noise (quite modestly, I might add) to the chair umpire. She also complained about it after the match. In my book, Hantuchova was justified. Shoe squeaking isn’t a problem during a point, just as mid-point grunting is OK, but what if a player grunted right at the moment that her opponent was striking a serve?

Ana hardly seems like a young lady to indulge in such gamesmanship, and she clearly had no intention of distracting Daniela with her noisy jitterbug steps. But the chair umpire should have informed here that the noise created a distraction. Venus Williams, too, appeared bothered by the squeaking in the previous round (at one point, she arrested a ball toss because of it), yet she said nothing to the chair.

That reminded me of the notorious Sprem incident at Wimbledon, when the quizzical Venus chose not to check the score with the umpire (who had it wrong).

Speak up, Venus! You do plenty of talking off-court. Don’t let Ana’s shoes drown you out!

SNAP!

Snap went the 32-match winning streak of World Mumber One Justine Henin, who suffered a 6-4 6-0 blow in the quarters (delivered by Sharapova). Sharapova's devastating form, and rejuvenated service game, carried her to the championship. It was, ironically, Justine who struggled on serve, posting a mediocre 48% on first serves; she also committed 5 double faults to Sharapova’s 1.

Maria finished +9 in the winners-to-errors ration, whileJustine sagged to  -10. So it seems that the excellent Madrid WTA final of  2007 constituted foreshadowing, and the potential for kindling an interesting rivalry. In Australia, it was Maria’s day, and this time it was Maria’s tournament. A week-in-week-out Henin vs. Sharapova rivalry would be a real treat for the tour in 2008.

GROAN. . .

Yes, this sighing sound bite comes in response to the performances of Venus and Serena. As is often the case, elder sis’s loss was less groan-producing than Serena’s, as Venus kept trying to do the right things in her match against Ivanovic.

By contrast, Serena was just terrible in her outing against Jankovic, and seemed an utterly different player from the ravenous champion of a year ago. We all know that both sisters will rebound – as they always do – and that the groans will subside. But how many tennis greats of the past – Chris, Martina, Steffi – played as poorly between their triumphs as the Williams sisters do? Consistency is a virtue that the sisters no longer have, which is truly unique among players of their caliber in women's tennis history.

The Sharapova-Ivanovic final of this year’s Australian Open provided an interesting soundscape in its own right. There was shrieking, but no squeaking, as Maria was in fine voice and Ana’s shoes had been silenced. Two Serbian fans in the crowd held up an oak-tag sign that read “Maria, please be quiet.”

The 2008 champ didn’t notice: she was busy putting an exclamation mark on the first exclamation mark of the tennis season.

Ka-CHINNNG!

That’s the sound of Lindsay Davenport raking it in. The former Number One, now with her sights set on being Number One mom, broke the prize money record for female athletes with her opening-day win over Italy’s Sara Errani. With that match, her on-court earnings swelled to $21,897,501.

Davenport’s financial achievement should serve as a reminder (by egregious contrast) of days past, when Billie Jean King and Co. were struggling to get by. And while the ladies have not achieved complete pay parity with the men, the gap is decidedly smaller than in most other pro sports. Lindsay got trounced in round two by eventual-champ Sharapova, whose own off-court earnings well exceed $21 million.

Have no fear, however; little Jagger Leach won’t be going hungry any time soon.